A flip flop day.

 The sun came up and straight out. No messing about. I got up and went straight out as well. It is the first of June . It is summer . The Tarn park has changed a lot in the weeks I have not been out.Missing all this because one weirdo spoils it for me? I don't think so Mr Stalker.

 Just after 4am I stepped into a skirt and shoes. never mind stopping for tea, I just let myself out of the back door. walking down the terrace I had to go up on the garden to get past all the parked vehicles as there is no room on the path to pass. That is unless you happen to be a size 0, which I currently am not.

 I walked around the whole path this morning......

 everything is green and in flower.

 The geese were up......

 Further around I saw the barriers where the swan's nest is and came upon the new swan family . I missed the swan's eggs hatching and the new cygnets!!!Bastard stalker. No more do I stay home. The police and work have done nothing about this I may add. So I will.

 The swans......

Just getting their breakfast.

 around by the water meadows.....

So there I have been out in my pyjamas to start June and Friday. We are just topping up with tea and then heading off to Otley for Friday junk trail. Might call in to see the effigies as well provided they are not having a coffee morning, Wouldn't want to get stuck in one of them.

A tights and boots day part 2

 We went to Temple Newsam house .We paid to go inside . The house has been closed for refurbishment. I can tell you that a lot of work has been done and that it is fabulous.

It is cold again so we had on our coats . We did not need to take them off as the sun did not come out and it rained just as we parked up on the avenue of trees. A day for wearing tights and boots and this is the second blog about this day, so here we go to Temple Newsam house. It is just about the end of May and half term holidays for small people. We have been treated to Mediterranean weather but definitely not today. Tights and boots. No flip flops this day.

 We went to the official car park and they wants us to pay £4.50!!! yikes no way. So we walked Monza  first ...after parking on the avenue where we can park for free. we just have to walk a bit further to the house..

Monza was so excited when he saw that we were heading up the back route to Temple Newsan he started sqeeking in the back of the car and licking our heads through the space in the seats.....He recognised it. We came before and he got to walk around the outside of the house whilst I took photos of my Red Queen doll. This time I brought along The Mad hatter, the White Queen and Madeline hatter from the "ever after series " of dolls.

This day it is half term so there were a few more dogs and people around than I am comfortable with so we stuck to the wooded area as far away from others as we could get....

 The area is massive so it worked out very well except the rain, I had intended to take Monza to the vast landscaped world of Capability Brown which dominates the view and have lunch. Far too many people around and cold and rain. So no picnic either. Never mind......Monza was very pleased anyway. Some where different for him to sniff. A dog thing, personally I just wanted to get in the house and see the refurbishments....First things first though.

I took along a bag of dolls as usual, I had them  along with my camera inside the house...I did not think it "right " to get them out for photos. They look good outside ! and I left it at that.

Temple Newsam is a real fave. we have not been inside the old place together since I first came to Yorkshire eleven years ago. I have! and outside many times......so here we are actually going inside together to see the new refurbishments.

Things have changed here. They have really smartened up their act. Many more guides and security and the paying part for entrance now happens in the shop at the stable block. The prices have gone up too.....so I was just about to find out if it was worth the money paid out from lottery money for the expensive refurbishments....
I applied for a job here.. I did not even get an interview! how I thought this would work out I do not remember as I live the opposite side of Leeds to this beautiful house and travel would have been a nightmare.......still here I am.  This visit we were offered a talking guide machine with buttons to press for each room as we walked and an actress telling the history and stories of each place and object.

ALL GLORY AND PRAISE BE GIVEN TO GOD THE FATHER THE SON AND HOLY GHOST ON HIGH PEACE ON EARTH GOOD WILL TOWARDS MEN HONOUR AND TRUE ALLEGIANCE TO OUR GRACIOUS KING LOVING AFFECTION AMONGST HIS SUBJECTS HEALTH AND PLENTY BE WITHIN THIS HOUSE



The letters around the roof of the house....this is what they say.

1155 Temple Newsam was the property of the religious order of the Knights Templar. Hence the name of the house Temple Newsam. . This house was built a bit after them.The original site of their farm was further over by the river aire

The Knights templar were the guardians of the pilgrim routes to Jerusalem. In their time the Knights wore white mantles with a red cross. Yorkshire was their stronghold and they were gifted much land for farming in this area by wealthy ruling Yorkshire families who thought this would help ease their journey to heaven.... The Mowbray's and De Lacy's .

The remotest of these gifts was Westerdale in North yorks moors (up by Castleton where my father had a farm) Others at Temple Cowton near Northallerton, Foulbridge, near Scarborough,  Ribston, near Weatherby   Copmanthorpe near York,  Temple Newsam, leeds,  Temple Hirst and Whitley near Selby and Doncaster  and  Faxfleet on the Humber......A lot of land was gifted to the order of the Knights Templar for farming and livestock.... The Templars were really generous to their tenants and this land was free of taxes and tithes. A cross was displayed to show this exemption. Some of these can still be found today if you look closely.....

The order of the Knights Templar  were supported by the Catholic Church, When the Holy lands fell to the Muslims The Templars power began to fade and rumours began to spread about their initiation ceremonies and wealth. Philip 1V of France used these rumours to avoid paying his vast debts to them and had them arrested, tried and burnt at the stake. 1307....13th of September. This is when Friday the 13th became very unlucky. certainly was for the knights Templar. So what happened to their enormous wealth!? is it buried here in Yorkshire I wonder? There is no record of it ever being impounded..........There are many conspiracy theories , novels films cults whatever you like about this. I reckon it is here in Yorkshire. My theary is that some "Yorkshire bloke" is the guardian. We all know what Yorkshire blokes are like about money......

Any way I am here today to see Temple Newsam house the birth place of Lord Darnley who was the second husband of Mary Queen of Scots and the father of James1 of England who inherited our throne after Elizabeth1.....Now I am getting ahead of myself as the next person to take over Temple Newsam from the Templars was Thomas Lord Darcy in 1500 and it was he who built this magnificent pile.
Thomas Lord Darcy  was a courtier, mercenary, and crony of Cardinal Wolsey. As you know Cardinal Wolsey fell from favour over Henry V111's divorce from Katherine of Aragon. He wanted to marry Anne Boleyn which in turn caused the dissolution of the monasteries. and religious reform and the king becoming the head of the church of England. Thomas Lord Darcy was opposed to the dissolution of the monasteries and for his part in the pilgrimage of Grace he was beheaded at tower hill 30 June 1537. This is why there are so many ruined abbeys and religious houses in Yorkshire.

He made a lot of money at court and built this house as a spectacular for sided courtyard house . Only the west wing in the centre survives today.
Lord Darcy was married twice  first to Doucabella Tempest who died before he built Temple Newsam...they had three sons and a daughter. Then he married Edith Sandys widow of Ralph, Lord Neville son of Ralph Neville the 3rd earl of Westmoreland. She had a son with him.
Lord Darcy and Edith had a daughter together ....Elizabeth Darcy who married Marmaduke Constable. This made Lord Darcy step father to Ralph Neville, 4th Earl of Westmoreland too. That would be the Ralph Neville who inherited the title of 4th Earl of Westmoreland from his Uncle John Neville Whos  third wife was Catherine Parr. Catherine became the last Queen of Henry V111 and survived him. The same lady who then went on to marry Thomas Seymour.
John Neville was also married firstly to Dorothy De Vere and then Elizabeth Musgrave......Just thought I would throw that in as some reading this will be very interested in that part.

Darcy was beheaded in 1537 and his property was freighted. It became the property of the King. Temple Newsam was then given to Henry V111's favourite niece the Countess of Lennox and it is here at Temple Newsam that Her sons were born. Henry Lord Darnley and Lord Charles Stuart.

Now we come to the photos from my mobile phone. Some are not that great . As you may remember I got a new mobile phone for Christmas. A Nokia with really good camera etc etc. And I lost it in a skip when it got caught in the garden waste we took to the tip? well before that unfortunate phone I had a Leon LG which was held together with cellotape due to being dropped twice and then Monza standing on it. This has been revived as best we can. It is still held together with cellotape and the front camera slightly distorts but apart from that it is fine......these photos were taken on this phone........

The countess of Lennox  was the daughter of The scottish Queen dowager Margaret Tudor (sister of Henry V111) and her second husband Archibold Douglas ,6th Earl of Angus. In her youth she was a great favourite if the king , Henry V111  until she became engaged without permission to Lord Thomas Howard who died in the tower of London in 1537 for this ! and then she went on to have an affair with Sir Charles Howard...the brother of Queen Catherine Howard who HenryV111 had executed in 13 February 1542 at the tower of London.
She still remained in favour but not so highly and married Mathew Stuart 4th earl of Lennox and had two sons at Temple Newsam.
During this time the house was furnished as a renaissance palace and became the centere of political intrigue which ended in Lord Henry Darnleys marriage to Mary Queen of Scots. Mary Queen of Scots too late discovered his bad character of drinking arrogant whore mungerer and had him murdered. This was after he had her private secretary stabbed to death whilst hanging on to her skirts screaming. She was pregnant with their son at this time.....This son became King James 1 of England. . So She had a house called Kirk o'fields filled with explosives and had it blown up with him inside. Though he was found strangled in the grounds in the rubble.......

Queen Elizabeth1 was not pleased by this Catholic intrigue which was hatched at Temple Newsam and had The countess of Lennox thrown into the tower of London and Temple Newsam once again became the property of the crown.
Margaret Douglas , Countess of Lennox was then lodged in the  lord lieutenant's lodgings opposite the bell tower at the tower of london in suroundings in keeping with her rank.  Lovely furnishings, servants and good treatment but it was still the tower and she was still doing her best to plot and intrigue. She kept up a constant and interminable correspondance with Sir William Cecil (Elizabeth's first minister and advisor) insisting her innocence over the marriage and conesquenial murder. Though she did find ways to communicate too with the French and Spanish embassadors too.....Lord Darnley also wrote to Elizabeth demanding the release of his mother. All of this just made Elizabeth more and more incenced and detemined to keep the Countess under lock and key in the tower of London.
 Margret Douglas countess of Lennox had a lot of power and connections at court. Honours and offices held at court were as follows.
First lady of the bedchamber to Princess Elizabeth (now Queen Elizabeth 1).
Lady in waiting to Anne Boleyn, Anne of Cleves . Catherine Howard,and Katherine Parr
Keeper of the privy purse to Mary1
In 1574 she again aroused the anger of Elizabeth 1 with more plotting. This time she had her son Charles married to Elizabeth Cavendish who was the daughter of the Earl of Shrewsbury. This plot was hatched along with Bess of Hardwick , Lady Shrewsbury. For this they were both thrown in the Tower of London again!.Elizabeth Cavendish became Elizabeth Stuart, countess of Lennox and she became the mother of Arbella Stuart. Arbella in a much later intrique was educated to become Queen in a consipracy cooked up by Bess of Hardwck. Arbellas portrait and ghost are said to haunt Temple Newsam .
Arbella had a much unhappy life and ended up in the tower herself in the end for marriage without the monarchs permission. She married William Seymour, 2nd Duke of Somerset. Who was the Granson of Edward Seymour who married the sister of Lady Jane Grey the nine days queen ,( just before Mary1). Arbella's marriage was a threat to the ruling dynasty as they would have a strong claim to the throne. She died a prisoner in the tower.

So you see Temple Newsam holds many secrets and I only wish the walls could whisper.  I always want to return.
Temple Newsam then was almost abandonned after this and suffered eighty years of neglect until Courtier Sir Arthur Ingram bought the estate and house.  he made a fortune in London, and wanted to "come home" to his native Yorkshire.
He had three sides of the Tudor house demolished and rebuilt and it was he who had the inscription placed on the roof and made sure this was recited daily in the chapel by the assembled household prayer time.
Sir Arthurs sons took opposite causes in the civil war. His Grand son Henry went into excile with the Royalists and was rewarded with the title of Viscount Irwin at the restoration of the king, Charles11.

The Irwins and later owners of Temple Newsam were very extravagant in their living expenses. this led to the sale of much furnishings and possessions to pay debts for gambling and fine living.
The property was inherited by Arthur who became the third vicount in 1688. Fortunately his wife was the heiress Isabella Machell who brought with her a ton of money and two paliamentry seats as part of her dowery. They produced nine sons. five inherited the sucessive Vicount Irwin title.

By 1758 they basically were running out of money fast and luckily the nineth Lord Irwin married Francis Sheperd who was bequeathed a great fortune from her father. So on arrival at Temple Newsam she just wanted to decorate. She purchased a whole new set of silver and china and brought in Capability Brown to landscape the park. She had James Wyatt rebuild the staircase and most of the works of art at Temple Newsam were bought with her money.
Charles and Francis had five daughters. so there was no male heir. The Irwin title became extint. Lady Irwin died in 1807 and her eldest daughter the Marchioness of Hertford inherited the Estate.

The Marchioness of Hertford . Isabella Ingram.. Married Francis Seymour-Conway, Marquess of Hertford. She was mistress to the Prince of Wales who later became George 1V.
The Prince often visited Temple Newsam. and sent her many presents including chinese wall paper still on display today.
The property then passed to her eldest sister Lady William Gordon on her death in 1834.And so to her nephew Hugo Charles Meynell Ingram. Temple Newsam was now mainly used for house party's now....

well wouldn't you? if this was your pile of bricks?

Hugo's son Hugo Francis married the Hon Emily Wood, daughter of the first viscount Halifax. On his death in 1871 She lived as a widow at Temple Newsam for thirty three years. she became very attached to the house and transformed this library into a chapel and made this part of the house the only area she lived in.

This room is a favourite of mine. It is the Gothic bedroom. The portrait is of Lady Mary Ingram and her ghost is said to be one that still haunts this house.

She is known as the blue lady and the reason is that when she was fourteen years old she was out in her carriage returning to Temple Newsam from a party. The carriage was ambushed by highway men and her pearl necklace was ripped from her neck. The necklace was a christening present from her grandfather.
It's losss was a great sorrow to her and the next morning she did not remember the robbery and thought she had lost the necklace. She looked every where and wandered around asking "where are my pearls?". She was so upset she stopped eating and drinking and died two weeks later.
Her unhappy spirit still searches the house for the pearls......



The fair nun unmasked by Henry Moorland, is one of my favourite pictures here.I have a copy of it in my log cabin on the wall in a frame. Much speculation surounds this picture. who is she? and why is she dressed in this way?
Well this picture shows a courtesan in masquerade costume, with her veil suggesting she is a nun.
In the 18th century it was fashionable for prostitutes to dress as nuns. a smoke screen of religion! The description of a woman as a nun in the 18th century implied that she was a whore. As for the identity of the lady? well possibly the wife of the Actor  David Garrick....Eva or the Duchess of Hamilton or Countess of Coventry.

These pictures as I say were from my mobile phone.....of the house as we went around with our talking hand held guide......

These are the "Darnley rooms" that I so love. They have not been visibly changed though I think there are more portraits .

Lord Darley and Charles Stuart 1st Earl of Lennox. This portrait is in the main reception area and one of the first things to see.....

This Tudor room was rebuilt in this house from Bretton hall. It is said the king Henry V111 slept in this room. Only the room at the time was in another house.

So we came out of the house and headed straight back to the shop in the stable block. I wanted the book of all the art in the house.......
Then back to rescue Monza dog and take him home for his dinner. It was that late by then
Quite a day. We started with Lee having his blood tests at Chapel Allerton hospital and ended with A curry and falling asleep on the sofa. We had walked MILES!!!!!